Periphrasis: The Role of Syntax and Morphology in Paradigms

Marina Chumakina and Greville Corbett

Abstract

Periphrasis is the phenomenon, well attested in the languages of the world, where a grammatical meaning which we expect to be expressed within a word actually has a syntactic expression. This means that periphrasis straddles the border between two major linguistic components, morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure). This dual nature of periphrasis creates analytical and theoretical problems; to solve these, we need to broaden the range of the evidence examined and to adopt new theoretical approaches. The present volume answers both of these challenges. First, it presents ne ... More

Periphrasis is the phenomenon, well attested in the languages of the world, where a grammatical meaning which we expect to be expressed within a word actually has a syntactic expression. This means that periphrasis straddles the border between two major linguistic components, morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure). This dual nature of periphrasis creates analytical and theoretical problems; to solve these, we need to broaden the range of the evidence examined and to adopt new theoretical approaches. The present volume answers both of these challenges. First, it presents new data on periphrasis, providing a wider typological perspective on the phenomenon than was previously available. The detailed analysis of periphrasis in individual languages from diverse linguistic families — Nakh-Daghestanian, Gunwinyguan (Australian), Uralic and Indo-European — expands our knowledge of the scope of periphrasis, and of its functions, both synchronically and diachronically. Second, the volume presents novel accounts of periphrasis from a number of theoretical approaches, including Canonical Typology, which together give a new perspective on the interaction of periphrasis with other linguistic phenomena. Periphrasis is demonstrated to behave as part of a morphological system in obeying the existing patterns, while formal accounts worked out within an HPSG approach reveal the systematic nature of its syntactic structure. This allows a clearer understanding of the relation between major components (morphology and syntax) in the overall architecture of the grammar.